There has been a lot of chatter about Pullman’s His Dark Materials series since The Golden Compass hit the big screen earlier this month. The first time I saw the trailer I was intrigued. The scenery was vast and sprawling. The characters, dressed in mildly outlandish costume, spoke in their British accents further removing the American viewer from the ordinary. The storyline resonated with earlier grand epic fantasies, reminding me of childhood escapism. But being intrigued was not enough to brave the idiotic crowds that so often travel en masse to the movies.

Then we received an email from our church advising us not to see The Golden Compass because it advocated the destruction of the church and God.

Now I wanted to see it. I yanked the book from my classroom library to read.

A week later I was stunned when I learned that the book had been eliminated from a statewide reading program and that some schools were considering pulling it from their school libraries.

It amazes me how in the twenty-first century people believe that books have the power to corrupt the faithful and stir the masses into some kind of social revolt. And usually the furor begins with some one preaching the ills of a text who has not read the text themselves. We’ve seen this before with most recently, The Da Vinci Code, and earlier, Fahrenheit 451 and Brave New World.

This is a problem of literacy. To be literate today means more than having just the ability to read and write. In today’s shrinking world, a literate person must be able to distinguish the verity of a source, and identify an author’s purpose. A reader must consider an author’s view point, not adopt it blindly.

Censorship is a slippery slope. If a group condemns a text for its content, it either incites an audience, or promotes fear from its masses. What terrifies me is how often the later occurs. One would hope that a reader would derive pleasure from spending time with a text and consider the author’s viewpoint, even if it may be antithetical to his own.

This does not mean that reading a book, such as The Golden Compass would corrupt my sense of faith, or incite me to riot against the “establishment”. Only I have the power to do that, unless, of course, I was like the lemmings who follow their leader off a cliff to their death.
When we condemn one text, we cannot help but condemn others. Soon approved texts will be homogenous extensions of the current popular belief. There will be no expression of differences, examinations of cultures, and belief systems. People may lose their desire to question and grow. Even if we don’t agree with something found within the lines of words and phrases, we need to allow others access to it. Everyone has the right to be literate. Everyone has the right to make up their minds for themselves.

So I guess that The Golden Compass will stand next to Harry Potter in some minds. And across from them will stand last year’s lauded Chronicles of Narnia. I hope that readers from both sides will dare to take a step towards the other and open their minds to grander possibilities.